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Just as Mark opens his mouth to tell us exactly what we’re all desperate to hear, the door to the boardroom swings open. Every head turns to see Alice, Mark’s personal assistant holding a phone in her hand.
Mark frowns because he hates being interrupted mid flow. His speeches are legendary, and this speech is three years in the making. I wouldn’t want to be in Alice’s place right now.
“What?” he asks her. He doesn’t bark because Mark just isn’t that kind of boss. But the twitch in his eyebrow tells us he’s not impressed.
“I’m so sorry,” Alice says, her eyes wide and flustered. “There’s an emergency phone call.”
“For me?” His brows dip this time. Mark’s a man who communicates with his eyebrows. You could probably draw a chart for every emotion.
“Oh no, Mr. Simons. Not for you.”
A chill shoots down my spine.They wouldn’t.
But they would. I know they would.
When my family wants to talk, they make sure it happens right then. It’s not entitlement, exactly. More like a learned behavior.
And now I’m sitting here on my phone – which has stopped buzzing for obvious reasons – waiting for the inevitable.
“Who is it for, then?” Mark asks her. His right eyebrow is twitching like he can’t stop it if he tried.
That’s the angry sign.
Alice’s eyes scan the twenty of us sitting in the boardroom. Her gaze feels like a searchlight seeking its prey. When it locks on me I take a ragged breath in, accepting the inevitable. I slide down onto my chair, wishing I could disappear.
“Mackenzie Hunter,” she says.
I stifle the groan that’s been brewing in my throat ever since my cellphone started buzzing.
“Well go on then,” Mark says, turning to me. “Take the call before I forget what I’m supposed to say next.”
I stand, which is easier said than done in these heels. I rarely wear three inches, but we’re heading straight out to a club after this to celebrate and the dress code isimpress or die trying.
Well it's not, but close enough. We’re going to the Colosseum, the achingly hip club that nobody in New York can get into right now. Apart from us, that is. But now I’m regretting my choice of high heels and super tight skirt because I can only shuffle sideways between the row of chairs, muttering apologies to everybody who gets an eyeline view of my ass as I move.
“I’m so sorry,” I breathe as I finally reach Alice.
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “It’s your mom,” she mouths.
Of course it is. I turn to Mark to tell him I’ll be right back, but I think his eyebrows are about to fly off his face and stab me. He makes a shooing movement with his hands and I totter my way out of the room.
When the door closes, I let out a low sigh.
“Here you go, dear,” Alice says, passing me the phone. “Just hit number one.”
“Thank you.”
Luckily, there’s an empty room next door, so I slide myself in there, bracing myself for the whirlwind that’s my mom. My heart is already pounding before I press the button on the phone.
I take a deep breath and give into the inevitable.
“Mom?”
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.” She has a soft voice but it still feels like knives stabbing at my head. Or maybe that’s just the oncoming migraine I know I’m going to get because phone calls like this never turn out well.
Like the time I got the call to fly to Montreal to bail my brothers out of jail.
Or the time I had to drive to Boston to pick my sister up from her ex’s apartment which she’d redecorated – and I use that term loosely – with a can of vermillion paint.
